Restoring my 520H

[Malcolm 2]

On 5/26/2019 at 4:46 PM, trailhopper said:

Looks great. What seat is that?

Do you happen to remember the part number of the seat? I would like to find one.

 

[76c12091520h 3,620]

12 hours ago, Malcolm said:

Do you happen to remember the part number of the seat? I would like to find one.

 

It is a Milsco XB180, armrests came with. Pricey, but I got what I paid for.

[76c12091520h 3,620]

 Blasted and high-temp coated the muffler, blasted and refinished the engine pulley, cleaned and detailed the original choke and throttle cables.

[76c12091520h 3,620]

 Finally (!) got around to cleaning the short block assemby. Completely cleaned, degreased, and de-carboned everything, pulled all 4 valves and re-ground/ lapped them ( with the vintage Black and Decker valve grinder). Seats are good, pistons are tight with crosshatch still showing in the cylinders; also got all the engine tins back from powdercoat. No particular reason for choosing powder over paint other than a time saving issue on my end. Ready for assembly. 

[76c12091520h 3,620]

 Progress!  Installed and torqued all the heads, intake, exhaust, all new stainless hardware, gapped & indexed the new NGK  plugs, anti-seize on the crank before installing the pulley and race, pulled a spiffy new K & B Pto disc off the shelf, custom made plug wires so I could run them where I wanted to in order to tidy things up, new correct length oem Toro oil filter. Added a few extra wire clamps and ties to clean up the mess of wires, along with just a little bling. We may have an engine install this week 

[Pullstart 62,879]

Beautiful!

[Tractorhead 9,064]

Fantastic Work, excellent 👍

[Brockport Bill 1,662]

spectacular -- did you possibly keep a log of how many hours???

[76c12091520h 3,620]

14 hours ago, Brockport Bill said:

spectacular -- did you possibly keep a log of how many hours???

Nope, an hour here, an hour there, sometimes nothing for weeks on end. Business kind of took off over the last 2 years and keeps me from getting time to work on my own toys.........

[76c12091520h 3,620]

 It still fits!!!

[Brockport Bill 1,662]

we all face that issue -  choices we have to make - would be nice to play with toys when we want but life has to balance -- i guess that's why some people play the lottery -- hoping to have more time for toys

[seuadr 488]

Shiny!

[WheelhorseBob 1,549]

Perfect! Great work!

[76c12091520h 3,620]

Polished and installed the heat shield, installed a few decals and some controls.

[kpinnc 12,054]

Looks better than the day it was built!

[76c12091520h 3,620]

 Installed and adjusted the pto assembly, installed one of our "optional" red pto brake assmblies; adding a few stainless washers here and there to take out any slop in the mechanism. New trunnion on the engagement rod. Nice and tight with no play. New bearings throughout.

[Thor27 767]

Very nice, your workmanship is great and the chrome sure pops.

[Maxwell-8 4,275]

5 hours ago, 76c12091520h said:

 Installed and adjusted the pto assembly, installed one of our "optional" red pto brake assmblies; adding a few stainless washers here and there to take out any slop in the mechanism. New trunnion on the engagement rod. Nice and tight with no play. New bearings throughout.

Woowie that is shiny, camera can't even adjust for it. Great job!

[tom2p 2,394]

14 hours ago, 76c12091520h said:

 Installed and adjusted the pto assembly, installed one of our "optional" red pto brake assmblies; adding a few stainless washers here and there to take out any slop in the mechanism. New trunnion on the engagement rod. Nice and tight with no play. New bearings throughout.

the pto brake looks great - thick pad ... has some 'meat' !

 

[Damien Walker 246]

I stopped clicking 'like' fairly early on as I reckoned most people would get fed up of my repeated indulgence in this beautiful piece of workmanship! I am very pleased with the near identical 518-H that I have just about completed, but this 520-H is exceptional....believe me, I know the effort that has been put in to it. Mine is intended to be a working machine and so I felt I could live with slight imperfections..it will get them soon enough. First trip out was scarifying the moss from our very dusty lawn.....

 

This very beautiful work of art should be confined to an air conditioned glass display case.

 

76c12091520h sir, you are a master craftsman.

[76c12091520h 3,620]

2 hours ago, Damien Walker said:

I stopped clicking 'like' fairly early on as I reckoned most people would get fed up of my repeated indulgence in this beautiful piece of workmanship! I am very pleased with the near identical 518-H that I have just about completed, but this 520-H is exceptional....believe me, I know the effort that has been put in to it. Mine is intended to be a working machine and so I felt I could live with slight imperfections..it will get them soon enough. First trip out was scarifying the moss from our very dusty lawn.....

 

This very beautiful work of art should be confined to an air conditioned glass display case.

 

76c12091520h sir, you are a master craftsman.

Thanks for the compliments,  now if it only runs.......

[Damien Walker 246]

8 hours ago, 76c12091520h said:

Thanks for the compliments,  now if it only runs.......

My 518-H had been very badly abused...stored outside and rarely cleaned and so I had a pile of problems to resolve. When it came to 'now if it only runs', I had a number of electrical problems: water ingress into the ignition switch, broken contacts in a number of connectors, (most significantly: the main to engine harness multi-plug, I eventually completely replaced it with an alternative) and failed microswitches. The main problem with the microswitches was caused by the bifurcated contact blades which had collapsed inwards (making them not as wide and therefore loose). As with the main connector, I replaced the microswitches with new equivalents, though changed from the narrow original blades to 1/4"...in the same microswitch body....difficult to do that if you are retaining the 'as from factory' wiring loom.

 

I can't say how much of my trouble was abuse or old age .......just a good selection of both probably!

 

I would imagine that with the level of attention you are giving to each step, you'll not have too much trouble.

[76c12091520h 3,620]

 My "shop time/play time " has been in short supply the last week or so, but I did get a package on Friday and had time to install it and get another shiny piece off the shelf and back onto the tractor.

[Tgalo 118]

When your done maybe you can do a walk around video. Would love to see it

[76c12091520h 3,620]

 Lots left to do, but we have signs of life